"Justice League" may have already been headed for disaster in the box office even before its production wrapped up, as rumors indicate that director Zack Snyder may have been fired by Warner Bros. from the film before he even announced departure.
Reports came from entertainment reporter for Mashable, Josh L. Dickey, in which he claimed that the 51-year-old director was relieved of his directorial duties for "Justice League" more than a year ago. Dickey also stated that this took place before Snyder announced that he will be dropping the movie. It is worth noting that Snyder was replaced promptly with "Avengers" director Joss Whedon for the rest of the film.
Dickey apparently knew early on and just couldn't report it at that time for some unknown reasons. He then went on to state that any movie's box office performance and critic aggregate score can be predicted based on its studio's production behavior. The case could be correct for "Justice League" as it was poorly received by critics and even performed poorly at the box office compared with Marvel movies.
Dickey has since deleted or hid his tweet regarding the matter though.
Whether the rumor is true or not remains to be seen, as Snyder and the DC Extended Universe (DCEU) executives or Warner Bros. have not commented yet. One thing that may support the speculations, however, is the fact that there have been numerous rumors over the past months that Snyder will not be returning to the DCEU. Although, those have also not been proven yet as all parties involved have not spoken up about anything surrounding those rumors.
Regardless, Snyder did reason out that his stepping down as director was due to family issues as his daughter Autumn committed suicide back in March 2017. Back then, Snyder stated that "I've decided to take a step back from the movie to be with my family, be with my kids, who really need me. In my mind, I thought it was a cathartic thing to go back to work, to just bury myself and see if that was way through it. The demands of this job are pretty intense. It is all-consuming. And in the last two months, I've come to the realization."
